Onboard graphics not cutting it for MBT - suggestions?

[Yoda 3]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm trying to get a mini-itx HTPC setup to work with MBT and am having no luck. The system has a core 2 duo 2.2 processor and g41 onboard intel graphics with 8gigs ram. Whenever I try to play uncompressed 1080p video in MBT, the whole thing lags immensely. During playback, CPU usage hovers at 90-100% which is where the bottleneck occurs. I tried playing around with different hardware acceleration settings in MBT; I even reinstalled windows 8.1 (lighter resource load than 7) from scratch and it still lags. From my understanding, the above specs should be plenty to handle uncompressed video and yet it's not working. The specific motherboard with onboard video is asus p5g41c-m.

 

Has anyone had luck playing uncompressed 1080p with similar specs or even that particular motherboard? Perhaps you could suggest where the issue might be occurring.

 

Thank you

[Luke 37009]

We are working on improving this. In the meantime,  you might consider this:

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/blog/1/entry-123-try-the-new-immersive-skin-for-xbmb3c/

 

It is designed very much like MBT.

[The Baron 64]

If the mini-itx case allows, you could add a low profile GPU into the mix.

 

Some models of the Geforce 610 will only pull 30 watts, for example.

 

I have one in my system and it has no issues playing very healthy sized videos. 

[shaefurr 1337]

Your integrated graphics technically should be able to play it just fine, I bet if you played the same media in VLC is would play smoothly. Though if you don't want to wait or try the XBMC plugin I second the add on GPU, you'll probably find even browsing MBT will be smoother as well if you go that route. I haven't used integrated graphics in years, at the least ill throw in a $40 video card. I'm not saying integrated video can't handle media or anything, but you just get so much more performance for such a little extra.

 

Heck I might have a 430GT around here somewhere I could mail you.. if I can find it amongst my pile o' PC remains

Edited October 24, 2014 by shaefurr

[jordy 284]

Hey,

 

I use an Asus laptop which is coming up for 8 yrs old with the following specs:

 

MOBO:   M51SN

CPU:      Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5Ghz. 4Gb DDR2 RAM

Video:    nVidia GeForce 9500m GS - 500Mb dedicated DDR2 memory - driver version 340.52

OS:        Win 8.1 x64

 

I run MBT & WinRT (8.1 App) using only LAV filters and it plays anything I throw at it. Including full Blu-Ray rips (in MKV format) over my wireless n network.

 

cheers

 

EDIT:  Just played 5 or 10 mins of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Blu-ray Ripped to MKV by MakeMKV)

 

Windows Task Manager shows:

CPU:  3 - 12%

RAM: 198 - 202Mb

Network: up to 47Mbps at times

Edited October 24, 2014 by jordy